Shaped glass sheets are widely used as side windows in vehicles such as automobiles and the like. To be suitable for such an application, flat glass must be precisely shaped to the curvature defined by the window opening. In commercial production of shaped glass sheets, the glass is heated to its softening point by passing it through a tunnel type furnace. After heating the glass, it passes into a shaping station where a lower transfer mold lifts the glass into engagement with an upper vacuum shaping mold. The vacuum mold holds the shaped glass while the transfer mold retracts. The shaped glass is then released from the vacuum and transferred to a cooling station where it is exposed to a tempering medium to impart at least a partial temper in the shaped glass sheet.
In designing automobiles, it is common practice to have opposite side windows mirror images of each other, that is, the left hand side window is a mirror image of the right hand side window. The windows have the same curvature but in opposite directions. Because these curvatures are often complex in nature, for example, curvature that is asymmetric along the transverse and/or longitudinal center line, separate shaping molds are required to fabricate each window. As a result there is production time lost while molds are being switched and realigned.
It would be highly desirable to have an apparatus that can shape both left and right hand mirror image windows that have complex shapes. Such an apparatus would have a mold with a shaping face capable of shaping both glass sheet shapes.